Pretty Lady (2 page)

She tugged the handkerchief from the cleft between her breasts and dabbed at her eyes briskly. It had been a long time since she'd cried over Denny, but tears were always closer now. They came with the pain, and the physical pain and the mental anguish blended together indistinguishably until she couldn't tell which the tears were for. Only that they were suddenly there.

She must try to control them – they frightened Denny. Poor Denny. It wasn't his fault. He tried so hard, he was such a good boy, God love him.

(God love him and receive him. As He will never receive me.)

She heard the creak of the gate and waved automatically, knowing that Denny would have turned to wave to her. She stepped back and closed the door, moving slowly, carefully, so that the pain coiled in her vitals might not be disturbed to strike again. It was always worse when she hadn't slept well, but she had saved last night's sleeping pill, putting it in the hidden bottle with the others so carefully hoarded. Perhaps she should have let herself take it. Tonight she would go back to the doctor and get the prescription renewed again. For the last time.

It would be hard on Sheila, of course, but not so hard as the alternative. Poor Sheila, so good, so uncomplaining.

Accepting the situation as soon as she was old enough to understand it, and helping take care of Denny as though she were the older of the two. As, in a way, she was.

Strange, the way things turned out. Incomprehensible. There was Denny – so longed for, so waited for, so welcomed with pride. And look at the way he had come to them – unfinished.

She and Brian, in their pride, had not noticed if for a long time. So fine to have a son. Such a bouncing, bonny baby – a perfect physical specimen.

At first, it was just the little things – hardly noticeable when you didn't know what to look for. When you never suspected anything could be wrong. He was always a bit behind the other babies his age, a bit slower to walk, to talk. (
‘Ah, but he'll catch up,'
she and Brian told themselves,
‘and then there'll be no stopping him. He'll show all those others a clean pair of heels!'
)

Gradually, they'd stopped saying it. Imperceptibly, the realization grew in them, even before they took him to the hospital for that great battery of tests which only confirmed what they already knew.

There would be no catching up for Denny. Not ever. He would go just so far – and always more slowly than the other children of his age – until, finally, he reached the point beyond which he could not go. He would remain there, a placid, friendly, smiling child. A little boy, her little boy – for ever.

And then there was Sheila – an accident. After Denny, they knew there should be no other. So they closed their eyes and their ears and their hearts to God and tried to ensure that there should not be. One like Denny was enough for any mortal parents to bear. But the accident happened just the same.

A stubborn little accident. With all the emetics and the jumping off tables and the hot gin and hotter baths not able to dislodge her.

It was God's own mercy that she hadn't been damaged far worse than Denny, with all that nonsense.

But Sheila was a blessing. One they didn't deserve, perhaps, but what would they have done without her? Sheila proved, too, that Denny wasn't their fault; that there wasn't a fatal strain of bad blood in either her or Brian that would doom all their children to the endless childhood that was Denny's.

(
'God's will
,' the priests said, feebly proffering the only explanation they had for the inexplicable. But why drag God into a terrible thing like that?)

It was nature. Just one of the cruel capricious pranks of nature. It might not have been so bad, even, if poor Denny had been stunted in some other way, as well – a midget, or a dwarf. (Not that she'd wish a thing like that on him.) But, in some funny way, it would have been easier to bear. Perhaps because people would have been forewarned. As it was, he had a man's body – an athlete's, almost – and the feckless, wandering mind of a child.

There was no use brooding about it. She moved slowly back to the kitchen and the breakfast dishes waiting in the sink. She must do those before she left the house. It wasn't fair to leave them for Sheila to find when she came home from work. Sheila did enough.

Sheila. Funny, after they'd been sure Sheila was normal, they'd relaxed, she and Brian. Ready to welcome another child or two, but none had come. There was only Sheila, who had grown up so quickly, and Denny, who would never grow up at all.

The tears and the pain came simultaneously again. She took a deep breath, willing herself to learn how to control them. She mustn't keep letting poor Denny see tears. They frightened him into inarticulate misery, standing there in front of her, with those poor dumb eyes asking, ‘
What can I do?'

What would he do when there was no one left to tell him?

(
Denny, Denny, don't be afraid.
She drew a deep breath against the ravenous pain.
I won't leave you, Denny. I won't leave you behind.
)

He walked faster as he got farther away from the house. It was going to be a nice day, the sun was warm already. Later, he might take his coat off, remembering to put it on again before he got home. Sheila wouldn't tattle on him, but some of the neighbours might.

He turned the corner, moving farther into freedom. He looked around cautiously. No one was in sight, no curtain twitched in any window fronting on the street. It was safe, there was no one watching.

He gave a skip, and then another, skipping all the way to the next corner. He stopped abruptly then, you never could tell who might be around the corner. Someone to catch him and tell Mum. He'd like to run and jump on a day like this, but it wasn't allowed. Mum had explained to him. Big boys didn't do things like that. Denny was a big boy now.

Denny was a good boy, too. So he must behave himself properly. Like a big boy.

Denny frowned. Somehow, he'd expected things to be different when he was a big boy. But everything was just the same. Maybe all big boys still felt the same inside, no matter how big they got. But some of them couldn't, because they behaved differently.

He'd like to. But Mum wouldn't let him grew a beard or wear his hair long. Only ... only ... there was something more than that to it. There was getting a job and going to work every day.

‘Sure, Denny, don't worry your head over that
,' Mum always said. It was what she said about a lot of things. He didn't worry, exactly, but there were a lot of things he'd like to know, because he didn't quite understand ...

But it was too good a day to think about hard things. Rainy days, when you couldn't go outdoors and had to sit inside and watch the raindrops sliding down the windowpane, were the best days for trying to figure out the hard things. Not good days. Today was a good day.

Today was such a good day he might even find Rembrandt. He quickened his steps, wondering where to start looking. Rembrandt was never in the same place twice. Not very often. The police didn't like him to be.

‘Move along, move along,'
Rembrandt had said. ‘
Those are the first words a copper learns to say. But that wouldn't bother you, would it, Denny? You like moving along, don't you, Denny? One place is as good as another to you'

Denny had grinned and followed Rembrandt, helping by carrying some of the pictures. He didn't always understand what Rembrandt meant by some of the things he said, but he liked Rembrandt. Rembrandt was his friend.

It was too bad Rembrandt had to leave some of his pictures behind every time he moved. Sunsets and sailing ships and kittens and doggies, all done swiftly with coloured chalks on the pavement. ‘
Penny catchers
' Rembrandt had called them, with a funny sneer in his voice. But Denny liked them best. He didn't say so, though, because of the way Rembrandt looked and sounded when he talked about them. Rembrandt liked the strange dark shapes on the canvases best.

You could tell right away what some of them were – like the places along the river – even though they were sort of dark and shadowy. But the other pictures were frightening – full of things you couldn't quite see, but knew were there in the darker shapes of the shadows. Things from nightmares and fevers, lurking to spring at you if you weren't watchful. Rembrandt knew which ones frightened him most and, when he saw him coming, he turned them around the other way, to face the building. Rembrandt was a good friend.

He'd tried to tell Mum about Rembrandt once, but she'd gone all funny and explained carefully that Rembrandt was dead, had been dead a long time. Later, he'd heard her say to Sheila, ‘
Where do you suppose he picked all that up from?
'

Big boys don't cry. So he'd gone to his room and bitten down hard on his knuckles – until he'd drawn blood, almost. And he'd been sad for a long while to think that his friend Rembrandt was dead. So sad he'd avoided the places where Rembrandt used to be.

Until, one day, turning an unfamiliar corner, he'd found him again. Alive and choosing a tawny gold chalk to finish the cocker spaniel ‘penny catcher'. Denny had been too glad to speak. He just stood there, beaming, while the great black stone rolled off his chest. Mum wasn't right about everything, after all. Rembrandt was still alive.

'
Hello, there, Denny
,' Rembrandt had looked up. ‘
Haven't seen you for a long time. Where have you been keeping yourself? Had the 'flu, or something?
'

Because he couldn't find all the words he wanted to say, and because he probably couldn't say them anyway past the lump in his throat (
big boys don't cry
), Denny had just nodded.

He was still glad, when he thought about it, that Mum had been wrong. Even though he couldn't quite understand how – she had never been wrong about anybody being dead before. If she said they were dead, they were. And she put on her hat and took Denny, and went down to the parish house and got a Mass Card for the repose of their souls.

Perhaps he'd got the name wrong. It would be easy to, because every time he'd asked Rembrandt his name when he first knew him, Rembrandt had said something different.

‘
Rembrandt
,' he'd said, with a funny twist to his mouth. ‘
Vermeer. Holbein. Botticelli. Gainsborough. Titian.
“
What's in a name?” Call me anything you like, Denny
.'

Denny had understood. Sometimes, when he was younger, he'd had trouble remembering his own name himself. It was nice to meet a grown-up with the same problem. It made them better friends, in a way.

‘Rembrandt,'
he'd decided. He liked the sound of it. He liked Rembrandt and all the bits of broken coloured chalks Rembrandt gave him for his treasure bag.

He walked along briskly, not quite skipping, the good feeling building up inside of him. He was going to find Rembrandt today. On the good days, all the nicest things happened. And finding Rembrandt was one of the nicest things he knew.

He sat across the breakfast table, looking sickeningly satisfied with himself, and beamed at her. As well he might. She didn't dare lock her door to him. He must not suspect anything, there must never be any suggestion of discord which he might hint at to his friends.

She kept her face smooth, her smile bland, willing herself not to think, to play the scene. It was Act I, Scene I of any English drawing-room comedy. Morning in a sunny breakfast room. The smiling, serene heroine and her bumbling husband.

She must think of it as just another long-running show. Not that she had ever been in any. But she must smile and play the role for just a little longer. Consoling herself with the knowledge that the run was ending soon.

It would be easier, though, with another face across the breakfast table from her. Peter O'Toole, perhaps. Or Albert Finney. Or ... Nick.

‘What are you doing today, love?'

It was the second time he had asked that. She came out of her reverie with a start. She must be more careful. She must keep paying attention. Otherwise, one missed one's cues, lost one's ... audience. She smiled warmly at him.

‘Harrods, I thought. I'll need something new for the Brainnerds's bridge party. I might get a dress ... or a suit.'

‘Buy both!' he said expansively. How he exulted in letting her spend money. In the power he felt at commanding an expensive wife. He felt the same about the Rolls – he liked sleek, well-maintained status symbols.

‘Perhaps I shall.' She made a face at him. ‘That will teach you!'

She controlled her inward wince as his laugh boomed out. It wasn't wasted. The maid entered just then with the morning post. A valuable witness. (‘Ever so happy, they always were, with their laughing and little jokes ... right up to the last.')

‘You'll be in town lunchtime, then?' he asked hopefully. She knew what that meant – lunch at his dreary club. On display, captured by his prowess, the young exotic wife – that his associates might envy him.
That
was a role she was tired of, too.

‘Happen you might meet me for lunch? At t'club ?'

The maid was still lingering, listening. She kept her faint protest perfunctory, as though she didn't mean it. (‘It was more like a joke, really. She never meant it for a minute. She'd never have said such a thing, even joking, if she'd only known ...')

‘T'club?' (Careful, nearly mocked the accent that time – mustn't get too close to the knuckle ... not now.) ‘With that great stodgy menu? They don't believe in salads there, do they? ... Or diets?'

‘Some place else, then?' But his face shadowed slightly – all his friends ate at the club. ‘Anywhere you like, love.'

‘No, no,' she laughed lightly. ‘I won't deprive you of your roly-poly pud. I'll take a long walk afterwards and work it off.'